WASHINGTON _ There are "sanctuary cities" that refuse to assist federal immigration enforcement. Now, there are "sanctuary counties" that refuse to enforce new gun control laws.
Rural, conservative communities are pushing back against state legislatures that have been approving new firearm restrictions at a rapid rate since the February 2018 massacre at a high school in Parkland, Fla. More than 200 counties across nine states have vowed not to enforce new state measures that restrict gun access, and 132 have declared themselves to be Second Amendment "sanctuaries," borrowing a term at the center of the immigration debate, according to a Stateline analysis.
For gun rights supporters, it's a defiant rebuff to state leaders they believe are attacking their communities' gun heritage and way of life. So far, county leaders have not translated their rhetoric into action by, for example, defying a "red-flag" court order to confiscate guns from a person deemed to be dangerous to himself or others.
But there is no doubt the movement is gaining momentum: Except for 52 counties in New York and three in Maryland, which acted in 2013 after their states passed new legislation following the Sandy Hook mass shooting, all of the counties have made their declarations since the Parkland shooting.
In New Mexico, for example, the Democratic-controlled state government enacted a new law in March requiring background checks for firearm purchases. But the month before, as state leaders considered the measure, 29 of 33 county sheriffs signed a letter declaring they would oppose any new state laws that "restrict the rights" of New Mexicans to own firearms.
The chairman of the New Mexico Sheriffs' Association, Cibola County Sheriff Tony Mace, a Democrat, told Stateline both the newly enacted background check measure and other proposals being debated in New Mexico are "unenforceable, overreaching, unconstitutional and a gun grab." Further, he said, they are a waste of taxpayer resources.
"In my community, I have more authority than anybody else," Mace said. "As a law enforcement officer, I have discretion to use the laws that I want to. That's my decision. I'm not going to enforce that particular law."
In a series of tweets in February, Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham mocked and lambasted the sheriffs for their "political posturing and dangerous, cynical pandering."
"That's not how laws work, of course," she tweeted, "and it's not how oaths of office work either."
Twenty-five New Mexico boards of county commissioners adopted sanctuary resolutions after their sheriffs took a public stance against the proposed gun control laws.
Robert Spitzer, a professor of political science at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Cortland and the author of five books on gun control, suspects most of this is just "bluster."
"Because they are elected officials, they respond to electoral pressures," Spitzer said of the sheriffs and commissioners.
"There is still some space between these braggart statements from some sheriffs and getting to a point where there's a direct confrontation over their refusal to enforce gun laws."
